ShareWay IP Gateway User's Guide

Using ShareWay IP

The Status Window

ShareWay IP's status window is shown below in Figure 1.

Figure 1. ShareWay IP Standard status window, ShareWay IP inactive

ShareWay IP's status window contains five important pieces of information.

The Gateway's status (active or inactive)
The IP address of ShareWay IP - This is the IP address that is used to access the targeted server through ShareWay IP. Note that when the Gateway is active, the target server's AFP URL will also be displayed (see Figure 3 below), including the server's hostname from a reverse DNS lookup.
The number of active connections through the Gateway to the target server, if any.
The name of the target server.
The zone of the target server, if any.

This window will display a 'not available' warning if ShareWay IP has not been able to contact the target server. This might occur if:

There's no network AppleTalk connectivity between the (remote) file server and the Gateway (Standard Edition only)
The file server is off
The Gateway is currently inactive and the file server was unavailable when the Gateway was last active

This window may also show that the IP address is not available. This would happen if:

TCP/IP is not properly configured
The IP address is obtained dynamically (for example through a DHCP server, a MacIP server, or a PPP server). The status will update to show the IP address when it's obtained.
The Gateway is currently inactive and the IP address was unavailable when the Gateway was last active

Changing the Target Server (Standard Edition only)

If the status window is not showing, choose "Show Gateway Status" from the File menu. If ShareWay IP is active, you will need to stop it before selecting another target server. Once ShareWay IP is stopped, the status window appears as shown in Figure 1 above.

There are two basic choices for target servers:

Server on this Macintosh - ShareWay IP will communicate with the AFP server on the same Macintosh as ShareWay IP. This Macintosh does not have to be connected to an AppleTalk network, but AppleTalk must be active.
Server on AppleTalk - ShareWay IP will communicate with an AFP server on the AppleTalk network or an interconnected AppleTalk network. To select a server, click the "Choose..." button. A window appears as shown below in Figure 2. If zones appear in the list on the left, select a zone. Then select a server from the list on the right and click "OK", or double-click a server.

Figure 2. Selecting a Server on an AppleTalk Network

Note that ShareWay IP Standard Edition can communicate with only one AFP server at a time. When you have selected a target server, you can start ShareWay IP by clicking the "Start" button. The server will not be accessible over TCP/IP until ShareWay IP has been started, and will be made inaccessible again by clicking the "Stop" button, quitting ShareWay IP, or shutting down the Macintosh where ShareWay IP is installed. If users are connected to ShareWay IP's targeted server when you attempt to stop or quit ShareWay IP, you will be warned that there are users connected and asked to confirm your choice.

NOTE: The Gateway can be run on the same machine as an AppleShare 4 server with AppleTalk multihoming enabled. As in other configurations, the Gateway will connect to the server using the primary AppleTalk interface.

When ShareWay IP has been started again, the status window appears as in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3. ShareWay IP Standard status window, ShareWay IP active

Security

Since ShareWay IP makes AFP file servers accessible over TCP/IP, potentially even over the Internet itself, the files on those servers may become accessible to a much larger number of people, making security an even more important issue. Consult the documentation for your AFP server on how to make that server secure, using passwords, access privileges, and other techniques.

If you are using ShareWay IP Personal, or you are using ShareWay IP Standard and have personal file sharing enabled on the target machine, you may want to consider disabling personal file sharing's guest access. To do so, go to the "Users & Groups" control panel, double-click the Guest icon, and under File Sharing, uncheck "Allow guests to connect." Under Mac OS 8, you must double-click the Guest icon, choose "Show Sharing", and under File Sharing, uncheck "Allow guests to connect to this computer."

ShareWay IP Standard requires even greater attention to security than ShareWay IP Personal, due to its ability to export servers from machines other than the Gateway machine. That is, a user with ShareWay IP Standard installed on their machine can choose to export their own server or any other server on the same AppleTalk network. This increases the possibility of making servers available on an intranet or the Internet without those servers having been properly secured.

In order to help you keep track of the ShareWay IP Gateways installed on your AppleTalk networks and thus more easily address security issues, while ShareWay IP Gateway (both Standard and Personal Edition) is active, it registers on AppleTalk the machine name of the machine on which it is installed, using type "ShareWayIP". A network management utility which can search through an AppleTalk zone and display devices of a given type can be used to display all running ShareWay IP Gateways, allowing you to keep track of who is using Gateways.

Number of Users Supported

Because Mac OS personal file sharing only supports a maximum of 10 simultaneous users, ShareWay IP Personal Edition also supports only 10 simultaneous users. On the other hand, since other servers support many more simultaneous users, ShareWay IP Standard supports up to 20 simultaneous users. For this reason, ShareWay IP Standard requires 1200 KB of RAM, while ShareWay IP Personal only requires 300 KB of RAM.

Although ShareWay IP Personal should have little effect on the performance of the machine on which it is running, ShareWay IP Standard could adversely affect its machine's performance if a large number of users connects simultaneously. If you expect heavy usage of the Gateway, you may want to run it on a separate machine.

Methods of Accessing the Targeted Server

There are three ways to access the server targeted by ShareWay IP from a Macintosh which has connectivity via TCP/IP to the ShareWay IP machine.

Chooser - On any client Macintosh, select the Chooser from the Apple menu, and select the AppleShare icon. Click on the "Server IP Address..." button, and enter the IP address of ShareWay IP, as displayed in ShareWay IP's status window. If there is no "Server IP Address..." button, you are using an old version of AppleShare Client. When you click on the "Connect" button, ShareWay IP's server will be accessed and the standard AppleShare login process will be begun.

NOTE: If the IP address used by the ShareWay Macintosh has been assigned a hostname, then the server targeted by ShareWay IP can be accessed through that name, as well as through the ShareWay Macintosh's IP address. The hostname assigned will generally be displayed in the AFP URL in the status window, when the Gateway is running.
AFP Engage! URL Processor - If Open Door's AFP Engage! URL Processor is installed on a client machine, access to a Gateway-targeted server can be initiated through AFP URLs of the form

afp://username@ShareWayIPAddress/volumename/pathname

username@ - needed if guest access to the AFP server is disabled
ShareWayIPAddress - the IP address of ShareWay IP as displayed in its status window (or the ShareWay IP machine's hostname)
volumename - the name of the volume on the targeted server
pathname - an optional path on that server. Note that you use the IP address of ShareWay IP, but a volume name and pathname from the server.
Aliases - Access to a Gateway-targeted server can be initiated through an alias to that server. To create an alias, mount the server using one of the two methods described above. When the server's icon is on your desktop, create an alias to it from the Finder's File menu. To initiate future access to that server, just double-click the alias.

Note that there are a number of known problems with aliases connecting to AppleShare servers over TCP/IP. If you have trouble connecting to a server with an alias, try to connect again using the Chooser or AFP Engage! After connecting successfully, create a new alias to the server to use in the future.

Standard Edition Users: If ShareWay IP is targeting a server on another machine, it is possible for the client on the same machine as that server to mount its own volume via ShareWay IP. This is not recommended.

Serial Numbers

ShareWay IP Personal and Standard editions use a serial number mechanism to easily convert evaluation versions of the software to paid-for versions and to prevent unauthorized duplication of the software. Both editions are available as evaluation versions that will stop working 10 days after the date they are first run. Until expiration, an eval version has all the functionality of a full working version. An eval version of ShareWay can be converted to a full working version by giving it a valid serial number.

When an unexpired eval version of ShareWay IP is launched, a dialog appears with the options "Enter Serial Number..." and "OK". Clicking OK lets you run the software as an eval version. Clicking "Enter Serial Number..." brings up a dialog which allows you to enter a serial number and convert the software into a full working version. Enter the serial number you were provided when you paid for the product and click OK.

When an expired eval version is launched, a dialog appears with the options "Enter Serial Number..." and "Quit". To convert an expired version into a full working version, click "Enter Serial Number...", enter a serial number and click OK.

The "Enter Serial Number..." dialog can also be brought up while the product is running. Stop the Gateway, choose "Enter Serial Number..." from the File menu, and proceed as described above.

If more than one copy of ShareWay IP is used, each copy must have a unique serial number. A ShareWay serial number is registered on the network (and checked for duplicates) when the Gateway is started, not when the serial number is first entered.

To obtain a serial number for an eval copy, or to obtain a lost serial number, contact Open Door Networks.

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